Dell Now Offering 160GB 7200RPM Hard Drive in XPS M1710

<!-- Generated by XStandard version 1.7.1.0 on 2007-03-28T20:28:27 -->

For those that crave large sized hard drives, but hate the performance hit you take due to the slower 5400RPM or 4200RPM rotation speeds, the good news is that 160GB 7200RPM hard drives have arrived and now shipping in some Dell notebooks.

In particular it seems that Seagate is the first one to market with a hard drive of this 160GB size and 7200RPM speed. The Seagate 7200.2 Momentus series with with either SATAI (1.5GB/s) / SATAII (3.0GB/s) interfaces and capacities ranging from 80GB - 160GB are configured inside of the Dell XPS M1710 now at Dell.com:

(view large image)

The 7200.2 Momentus series also offers built-in G-Force protection to protect data in the event of a drop. For a full run down on the specifications of the Segate Momentus 7200.2 hard drive series please view this PDF.

The drives will be available in limited quantities soon for those that wish to order as an upgrade to their existing notebook hard drives. You can see that the upgrade cost on Dell.com to go from an 80GB 7200RPM hard drive to the 160GB 7200RPM hard drive is +$250. That's a steep price to pay for an extra 80GB, but it is the latest technology you're buying. We expect the hard drive by itself would cost in the $400 range.

Fujitsu and Hitachi not far behind

Fujitsu recently announced their 160GB 7200RPM 2.5&quot; drive (model MHW2160BJ) and Hitachi has said they will ship a TravelStar drive that spins at 7200RPM with capacities up to 200GB -- but these companies have not shipped the product as of yet, simply announced (or in the case of Hitachi, said they will announce).

Why does hard drive speed matter?

Most people don't often pay attention to the speed of the hard drive, but rather just look at the capacity. This is partly because manufacturers of notebooks often don't tell the customer how fast the drive is -- just how much data it can store. But as a consumer you should care, a 7200RPM hard drive can offer 25% more performance over a similar size 5400RPM hard drive.

 

It's about time Seagate finally shipped this. Seagate first announced the 7200.2 series almost a year ago, but said they were waiting for Q1 and Vista before shipping. I guess I should be satisfied by my 160GB 5400rpm drive, but 7200 rpm being 25% faster!?! Seems a bit much. I'll probably wait for hybrid hard drives if I'm going to upgrade later though.

 

I wonder how much a solo drive would cost.

 

Might only be 10-15% faster, 25%? I doubt it

 

One thing that I am disappointed in is that Seagate's previous PDF on the 7200.2 series showed the 160 GB to have 16MB cache. Granted I do not have that old PDF as proof, but I do remember explicitly seeing "16MB" instead of 8 =[...

I dont think there will be a significant difference between the 7200.1 and .2s in terms of noise, but i think the .2s may be a little bit faster due to the perpendicular recording.

 

its msrp is 299$

 

Too much.

I guess i'll end up buying an external.

 

make sure you connect it through your PCIe slot or it will be slower than your current HDD.

 

25% does sound really high, it's what they're claiming though (in the PDF I linked to)

 

I'm glad the higher rotation speeds are finally becoming friendly with larger drives. I have been craving a drive upgrade for my secondary, but didn't want to drop the RPM's to 4200 to achieve the space desired. Hopefully, before long the price will drop on these.

 

Andrew,

Approximately 25%, so my guess is roughtly 20% max. I doubt it be above 25%. Just my though, no prove from my side Sorry.

 

Manufacturers have never been know to over inflate their estimates.

 

I'll say at most $250.

 

sounds high, but its close to accurate, I have had both kinds [5400 & 7200rpm] of 100gb Seagate Harddrives.

the load times [for BF2 and Ghost Recon] were definitely faster, cut off about 15-25% of time between 5400 and 7200rpm.

 

As usual for Dell ( and other companies ) , you'd be better off buying the drive and installing it yourself .

Even if it costs you 250$ you end up with a "free" new 7200 80GB drive which is not bad .

 

And the cache size? Is it 16 Mb now? I would really want to see that hard drive with 16 mb cache.

 

SSD Hard Drives are in line

 

It is 8MB cache.

 

Aah too bad it is 8 MB cache. Desktops have 16 MB cache since 2006...

 

IMO the significance of this is more that it, in a month or two, it will be an optimal time to look for decenlty a 200GB 5400 rpm - the margins of those will drop as larger 7200rpms like this one come available - and the 200GB is more useful IMO.

 

I haven't seen 16MB in notebooks...though you'd think high end drives would have it...maybe its a space issue?

Hard drive prices tumble within months of their release. Just wait.

LOL!

Exactly. No point in spending the equivalent of a new drive when upgrading through Dell's customization process.

 

I just checked, it's an option for the m1210 as well now.